Stars and swipes: Why one clash will make or break Wallaroos’ World Cup

Can’t get enough of pulling on the gold and watching Test rugby at the moment? You’re in luck.

The Women’s Rugby World Cup kicks off on Saturday morning in England, and the Wallaroos will be flying the Australian flag with the most experienced squad they’ve sent in eight cracks at the tournament. The Aussie campaign begins on Saturday at 9pm (AEST) against Samoa.

Coached by Jo Yapp, the Wallaroos are ranked sixth in the world, and will be aiming to improve on their quarter-final finish at the 2022 Rugby World Cup. But achieving that goal will depend on one winner-take-all pool clash with a bitter rival.

So here’s what you need to know about the Wallaroos and their campaign.

Preparing to succeed

The Wallaroos head into the 2025 World Cup better prepared and better resourced than ever before. The Australian side has been to eight World Cups, having first qualified in 1998, and the team’s best finish is a bronze medal in 2010, when the tournament was last held in England.

Australia made the quarter-finals in 2022 (after the original 2021 tournament was delayed due to COVID), but since then, the women’s XV game in Australia has changed dramatically, with significant – and overdue – investment resulting in many more Test matches being played, full-time coaches and players finally being contracted.

From their inception in 1994 until 2020, the Wallaroos played 55 Tests. In the four years since (factoring in COVID), they have played 39 Tests.

In 2022, the Wallaroos had one player with more than 30 caps in their squad. In this tournament, they have 10. With 15 of the 32-player squad at a second World Cup, and two at a third, the Wallaroos have a combined 567 Test caps. Three time sevens Olympian Charlotte Caslick switched to 15-a-side rugby this year and made the squad, but was unfortunately ruled out due to an ankle injury.

On a staffing front, the Wallaroos have gone from a handful of part-time coaches in 2022 to 16 staff at this World Cup, including nine full-time coaches and backroom staff.

“Without a doubt, from a Wallaroos perspective, there’s been a real increase of support over the last 18 months to two years, with staffing and, with the players and the contracts they’re now on, and all the time and the camps we’ve had together,” Yapp said.

“But what I want to highlight, as amazing as this is for our preparation, it is what other teams have been doing for years, so we are still trying to close that gap. What we can’t do either is have it drop off post-World Cup. This level of support has to continue, and then probably increase again as we get closer to 2029.”

Beat the USA and go all the way?

The Wallaroos are in pool A with Samoa, USA and hosts England. The top two qualify for the play-offs.

Australia are likely to beat world No.13 Samoa, but lose to world No.1 England (more on that later). So for the Wallaroos to reach the quarter-finals, it all rests on the showdown with the USA on August 31 in York.

Their probable quarter-final opponent would be Canada.

The inconsistent US team is ranked 10th but have a strong rivalry with Australia, and they are pretty evenly matched. Since 2022, each side has two wins from their four Tests. Australia thumped the US 58-17 in 2023, but then gave up a big lead in 2024 to lose 32-25.

The Wallaroos were too good in their last clash in May, winning 27-19 in Canberra in a game made famous for Alev Kelter’s stomp on Georgie Friedrichs, which earned the star a lenient three-week ban. That meant she is available for this World Cup showdown.

The USA also have social media star Ilona Maher (with 5.2 million Instagram followers) in their side.

“We were pleased with the win [in May],” Yapp said. “But as cliched as it sounds, USA is a critical game, but we aren’t looking past Samoa. We know they’re going to come out and throw literally everything at us.”

Yapp named a strong Wallaroos side to meet Samoa on Thursday night, with 18-year-old Caitlyn Halse becoming the youngest ever Australian player at a World Cup.

There are only two changes from the starting team that beat Wales 36-5 in their last start. Eva Karpani will start at prop, and Cecelia Smith will start at no.12. Emily Chancellor and Kaitlyn Leaney are co-captains, with tour skipper Siokapesi Palu still injured.

Another Brighton miracle?

Women’s rugby is big in England, and the Red Roses are a juggernaut, ranked No.1 in the world. They have lost just one of their past 58 Tests, and are on a 27-game unbeaten run.

That one defeat was in the 2022 World Cup final against New Zealand, and England’s drive for redemption at home has driven unprecedented interest in the tournament, and huge ticket sales. The final at the 80,000-seat Twickenham is already sold out, meaning it will be a women’s rugby record crowd, beating the finals of the 2024 Olympic sevens in Paris.

Australia face England on September 7 at Brighton Community Stadium and rugby fans will remember that stadium well – it’s where Japan famously beat the Springboks at the 2015 men’s World Cup.

That is regarded as rugby’s most famous upset, but if the Wallaroos topple England to break their winning streak, that would have to top it.

West is best

Australian rugby is often stereotyped as a private school sport, with players predominantly coming from affluent suburbs in Sydney and Brisbane. That is mostly outdated, and the Wallaroos have a proud bunch of “westies” in their World Cup squad who have chosen to pursue the 15-a-side code instead of playing in the fast-growing NRLW rugby league competition.

Five of the Wallaroos hail from western Sydney, and four of them are products of the same club, Blacktown Scorpions: Waiara Ellis, Faliki Pohiva, Faitala Moleka and her sister Manu’a Moleka. Caitlyn Halse is from Camden. Ellis is only 17, Halse and Manu’a Moleka are 18 and Faitala is 20.

The Wallaroos squad also has seven players from rural and regional NSW. Cecilia Smith first played rugby for the Leeton Dianas, the sister club to the Leeton Phantoms.